Haditha Massacre

The Haditha Massacre occurred on 19 November 2005 when Kilo Company of the 3rd Battalion 1st Marines from the US Marine Corps killed twenty-four Iraqi civilians in the city of Haditha after a roadside bomb planted by Iraqi insurgents killed PFC Cuthbert and seriously wounded two other marines. The massacre was a rallying cry for several insurgents, and the marines involved were never charged.

Background
The city of Haditha used to be a beautiful city of Iraq where people would go on honeymoons, but after the start of the Iraq War in 2003, it was nicknamed the "City of Death". Several attacks took place during the conflict, and on 18 November 2005 an English teacher was murdered by al-Qaeda in Iraq. That day, Amin Abdul and Jafar Samad were promised $1,000 each by foreign al-Qaeda fighters if they would plant a roadside bomb in Haditha to kill US Marine Corps soldiers as they drove in Humvees. They buried the bomb, and the two families of adjacent houses left after seeing the bomb being planted. On the night of 18 November 2005, a US drone killed a military-age Iraqi male seen walking along the side of the road with a shovel, as they suspected him of preparing to bury an IED (he actually was planting a tree for the circumcision party of an Iraqi child). The two bombers hid on the rooftop of a nearby building, and they were unable to detonate the bomb that night, as the humvees were driving on the other side of the road.

Massacre
However, the next day the two Iraqis were able to bomb a humvee and kill one marine and wound two others. The enraged Corporal Ramirez, who was denied the option of visiting a doctor by his commanding officer (new policy only allowed for soldiers to see their doctors at the end of their tours of duty), was enraged at the death of his friend PFC Cuthbert in the bombing, and his men agreed to take part in a massacre of several Iraqi civilians to "avenge" Cuthbert's death. They pulled over an Iraqi car carrying four teenage men who were headed to a party, and Ramirez himself shot each of the men once in the heart after they said that they did not know the bombers. The squad proceeded to split up and go to several buildings, "clearing them out". The soldiers threw grenades into the rooms where the families hid, and in one house, the male patriarch headed to open the door to allow the Americans to do their routine search of several houses, but he was gunned down through the door. The Americans killed almost every person in the houses, but 12-year-old Safa Yunis was wounded in the eye and survived, the only survivor of her family of nine. Hiba Abdullah survived along with three of her family members, although the other nine were killed by the marines, including her husband Rashied. Rashied was shot three times by a sniper on a sandy hill while he was crying out Hiba's name in search of her, and Hiba was spared by Ramirez when he realized what he had done. The massacre left 24 people dead, all civilians. The two bombers escaped, and they were paid their money. They videotaped an interview with Safa describing how she was hit on the head by the Americans and her family was massacred, and the militants were rallied by this massacre. The American soldiers were all charged with murder or assault, but in the end, all of them were acquitted.